Wire fences are very old and are part of the common experience of almost everyone. The typical fence is formed of a plurality of wires attached to a series of upright posts which are spaced apart along a line on a surface on which the fence is to be mounted. The wires must be attached to the post in a secure manner, and the attachment must be done efficiently.
Fence-ties have been used for this purpose. A fence-tie in its simplest form is a straight piece of rigid, yet deformable, wire. The first end of the fence-tie is bent into a hook by the fence installer and then hooked over a portion of the fence wire adjacent an upstanding post. The balance of the wire is then bent around the post with the free end being pushed past and over a portion of the wire fence adjacent to and on the opposite side of the post from the first end. The installer then inserts the jaws of a pair of pliers under and beyond the wire portion of the fence to bend the free end of the fence-tie around the wire portion of the fence on which it is resting. The installer then uses the pliers to tighten the first end of the fence-tie around that portion of the wire fence to which it is attached.
The installer must exert a large amount of strength and effort in bending the first end of the fence-tie into a hook, and he must exert even more strength and effort in bending the second end of the fence-tie around the wire fence due to the clumsy, inconvenient position that the second end of the fence-tie is in.
Many solutions have been put forward to solve the problem faced in bending the first end of the fence-tie into a hook for attaching the first end of the fence-tie to the wire fence. These include bending the first end at an angle during the manufacturing of the fence-ties. That is, the first end is prebent as part of the manufacturing process on a machine having appropriate wire bending capabilities. In the prior art the first end has been bent as little as only a few degrees to as much as 180 degrees. The prior art also includes the bending of the first end into a spiral to increase the retention of the first end of the fence-tie on the wire fence. An example of this type of fence-tie is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,907,553 issued to Cookman. The prior art also includes deforming the first end of the wire around approximately 180 degrees and then bending the bent over arm of the hook into a "V," with the vertex of the "V" positioned closest to the body of the wire. In this type of fence-tie the hook end is pushed beyond a portion of the fence wire and pulled back so that the fence wire is forced through the gap between the body of the fence-tie and the vertex of the "V" of its hook end to snap fit therein.
In all these embodiments the hook end portion of the fence-tie may be applied to the fence by hand without any tools, except perhaps to tighten the fence-tie upon the fence. In each of these cases, however, the fence-tie is otherwise applied to the fence in the traditional manner. Thus in affixing the second end of the fence-tie to the fence the installer still must use considerable strength and effort to affix the fence-tie to the fence. Also, as discussed above, a substantial amount of time is expended in affixing each fence-tie. If a fence is used to fence in a yard having a parameter of 400 feet (as for a small school yard or construction site) and the posts are disposed one every ten feet, with four fence-ties being applied at each post, it can be seen that the fence-tie installation must occur 160 times. If approximately 30 seconds can be saved in the installation of each fence-tie, over one man hour can be saved in the installation of a fence for a small yard or construction site.
In addition the typical prior art fence-tie must be made extra long in order to enable the installer to be able to grasp the free end of the fence-tie with the jaws of a plier and bend it back around the wire fence. Therefore, in addition to bending the fence-tie around, the excess must be trimmed before the free end can be bent into its final position.
Other fence fastening devices illustrated by the prior art are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,251,644 issued to Tinnerman, U.S. Pat. No. 1,849,410 issued to Selquist, U.S. Pat. No. 3,169,750 issued to Weed, U.S. Pat. No. 3,246,880 issued to Weed, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,270,581 issued to Claxton, et al.